Word: athanasius
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Primitive peoples believed that evil spirits carried diseases. Hebrews and Greeks proved that cleanliness protected them from many ailments. In the Middle Ages doctors ascribed to various invisible contagia the causes of diseases. In 1658 by means of a simple microscope Athanasius Kircher of Fulda, Germany, saw "worms" in the blood of people stricken with Black Plague. Those probably were the first germs ever noted. As microscopes were improved more kinds of animalcula were observed, and doctors gradually associated them with disease. But not until 1876 was a germ proved to be a cause of a disease. The disease: anthrax...
Even humbler was the Rev. Brother C. F. X. Athanasius who had a fine still life of a plate of peaches for $35. Taxi-driver Joseph Dunphy would never have had his two pictures in the exhibit at all if an unknown benefactor had not donated the necessary $8 after appeals printed by kindly newshawks...